


Ibrahim in Felarya

by SevenOceansOfInk



Category: Felarya
Genre: Fictional Religion & Theology, Gen, Imprisonment, Islam, Muslim Character, Religion, Scarification
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-04-14
Updated: 2017-04-14
Packaged: 2018-10-19 00:06:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10628025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SevenOceansOfInk/pseuds/SevenOceansOfInk
Summary: Desily is alone and captive on an Othemite airship when she is joined by an unexpected neighbor in the airship's brig - a man named Ibrahim Abd-el Rashid, who is bold, sharp-witted, and defiant of the zealots that have captured the both of them. When they decide to break free and venture back into the wilderness of Felarya to find their respective ways home, what adventures will unfold for the both of them?





	

**Author's Note:**

> Special thanks to Karbo, without whom the entire Felarya universe would not exist. See more about the incredible world of Felarya and find links to the ongoing manga series about its inhabitants at www.felarya.com.
> 
> This is a story about faith - about having it, about losing it, about finding it again. If you have lost yours, I hope this story will help you find a way back, in whatever shape or form faith may take for you.

_Oh my god_  
_What have I done--_  
_Chasing some mirage in my Mojave sun_  
_Don't say every chance is lost,_  
_Please don't say anything at all..._  
  
_In sand and thorns_  
_I'm walking forth_  
_Bare and blinking as the day that I was born_  
_Bells in spires of China white_  
_Ring for an Augustine tonight_  
  
_Oh now, I'm breaking down, breaking down..._  
_Oh let me be--_  
_Let me be your Augustine!_  
  
_Lead me now_  
_I understand_  
_Faith is both the prison and the open hand_  
_Bells on low, on high,_  
_Will you ring for Augustine tonight?_  
  
_Oh now I'm breaking down, breaking down..._  
_Every illusion in between_  
_All the lies that I have seen_  
_Oh let me be, let me be your Augustine!_

_~_

Desily could feel the airship’s engines rattle the walls of her cell. The mat she’d been given to sleep on was thin enough that the steady vibration transferred through the coarse fabric and rubbed it against the scars on her back. In the weeks that she’d been kept in her cage, she had learned to tune out the dull, steady pain they produced. It was only the occasional spike, caused by a patch of turbulence or a momentary malfunction in one of the engines, that sent a shoot of pain along her spine to radiate from there throughout the rest of her body. She could tolerate it. It was, out of the slim collection of experiences she’d had while on board, the only thing she could tolerate.

The hallway outside ran past her cell in either direction, stretching forward and aft for as far as she could see through the cell’s bars. They all stood empty except for hers, and the only noise she heard beside the distant hum of the propellers were occasional set of footsteps either approaching her or receding into some other part of the aircraft.

Footsteps only meant one of three things. The first was food, a dull white gruel that tasted to her like a pot of boiled, congealed slugs. She’d vomited the first time they tried to make her eat it, as well as several attempts after that. It was only through repetition, and the force of will to stifle her gag reflex, that made it possible to eventually keep the flavorless paste down in her stomach. Given the choice, she’d rather starve. The Othemites, however, were not about to give her the liberty to choose. It was better, then, to force herself to swallow each mouthful on her own than suffer the humiliation and pain of being force-fed.

The second was medical. A medic stopped at her cell once every few days and stripped her out of the simple gown they had put on her. Kneeling with her back to the physician, she closed her eyes and allowed the woman - it was always a woman, she’d noticed - to touch and prod and study the scar tissue that ran from her shoulders, following parallel to her spine, down to the bottom of her rib cage. Ointment would be applied, bandages replaced, instruments stuck in her mouth and against her chest and head, the doctor making notes on pieces of a paper attached to a board. She said very little. There were no pleasantries, no conversations. Just simple commands, worded politely, but all very firm and spoken with the implication that there would be consequences if she did not obey.

Both of these, she could tolerate, just as she did with the grind of her mat into her wounds. It was the third, however, that she refused to abide by.

A low, distant groan echoed through the hallway. Someone was coming, she realized, and sat up to wait for who it was and why they were coming to see her.

Her ears twitched, listening for the sound of footsteps approaching. The steady tap-tap of a pair of boots against the metal floor. It sounded wrong this time, though. She raised a hand to one ear, leaning sideways to try to hear more clearly.

She was hearing clearly. There were a pair of footsteps, one lighter than the rest. Perhaps the clerics were growing tired of her resistance to having a conversation with them. It would be a team effort this time.

The footsteps drew closer. Part of her itched to approach the bars, to get a look at what was happening, but she thought better of it. Her Othemite keepers preferred to have her stay back, and had no qualms about prodding her with electrified staves to make that point clear. So she waited for the pair to come close enough so she could see.

The first to come into sight looked familiar enough. One of the Othemite clerics; she couldn’t remember his name, nor did she care to do so. After several weeks of imprisonment here, their faces and names began to blur together. Their speeches were all the same, anyway, and she no longer bothered to listen to them.

It was the other person, the one following behind the cleric, that she couldn’t recognize. He wasn’t wearing Othemite robes; the pants he was wearing were badly worn and ripped at their hems, the fabric lowest on the legs thoroughly stained by mud and river water. His shirt was also plain, a sleeved button-up that some of the men she’d encountered prior to her capture seemed to favor. The sleeves on this, at least, were shorter and showed little signs of damage. It was, however, drenched down the back and sides with sweat.

His hair and complexion were as much a contrast to the cleric’s as his clothes were. His hands and face and feet were a much deeper, warmer shade of brown than the pale, polished hands and face of the Othemite leading him along. His hair was longer, thick, tight curls laying in all directions as they sprung forth from his head. Lines were lightly traced around his mouth, while dark patches lay like permanent shadows under his eyes.

The cleric slid a card through the box attached to the cell door across from hers, and pushed open the door. The stranger paused at this, looking neither angry or frightened by the reality of imprisonment. All she could see was exhaustion in the way he looked straight into the cell's interior.

His guard grew impatient, pressing a hand to the stranger’s back, shoving him into the cell. The man tripped over his feet, his arm flying out to catch the wall, the metal bars covering the open front of the room, anything. All of it was out of reach; he toppled forward, landing first on his knees, and then on his face.

Groaning, the cleric shook his head and stepped inside, pulling the cell door shut behind him. “Get up,” he said, prodding the stranger in the ribs with his boot. “Have a seat on the bench.”

The man spread his arms out, testing his limbs before putting weight on them to force himself up. From there, they took hold of the simple bench that folded out from the wall, pulling his body up onto it so slowly that she swore she could feel the labored effort of his muscles in her own. She rubbed her arms and laid back down, continuing to watch and listen all while hoping the cleric would be too occupied with his latest prisoner to notice her eavesdropping.

“We have tried to be welcoming to you,” the man said, arms crossed. “We have given you food and shelter; we rescued you from the horrors of the jungle. You are among your own kind again. And you repay us by refusing our invitation?”

The stranger sat in silence, bowed forward as though sitting up was beyond the capabilities of his body at that moment. The cleric frowned, grabbing him by the shoulder to force him to sit upright; his captive winced as he slammed against the metal panels behind him. “Answer!”

The man sighed, finally raising his head to match the cleric’s eyes. “Generally speaking,” he began, his voice kept low. Desily could barely hear him, shifting a little closer to the front of her cell until his words were easier to understand. “An invitation implies the option to accept, or decline. If my only choice is to accept, then it’s more of a command.”

She smiled, only to have it erased by the loud crack of palm against cheek. The man fell sideways, catching himself with one arm before his shoulder crashed onto the bench. “Your soul, your immortal being, is hanging in the balance here!” The cleric reached for the front of his prisoner’s shirt, hauling him up onto his feet. “We are giving you the opportunity to redeem yourself! You have fallen from the lighted path, fallen into complacency with the monsters that live in the wilds below us; such a way can only lead to your destruction, and destruction of your fellow man!”

The stranger refused to answer, sitting in silence with his head bowed. The cleric shook his head, turning his back on the man as he unlocked the cell door again. “Remain insolent, if you wish. We will persist, and bring you into the redemptive radiance of Oth, whether you wish to or not.”

He didn’t bother to wait for a reply. Once back in the hallway, he slammed the cell door shut. “Your dinner will be brought to you later. You will have another opportunity to confess and plead for you forgiveness afterward.” He turned, banging a fist against her own cell’s bars. “Your own food will be brought to you at that time, as well. Try to keep it in your stomach, this time. The longer it lingers within you, the more it will purify your appetite.”

Then he was gone, boot steps fading down the length of the hall, until the bang of the brig’s heavy door sealing shut silenced the space.

 

~

 

She tried to rest, laid out on her back, her eyes tracing the seams between the metal panels overhead again and again. It was the same as every other day she’d spent thus far in her cage. Some part of her, some corner of her mind that must slowly be unraveling, she told herself, hoped that the direction or number of lines might change. It would make the repetitive task all the more enjoyable.

Her neighbor, at least, made the monotony of her day somewhat more interesting. His first hour was spent pacing around in his cell, examining everything. His lay against the exterior wall of the airship’s fuselage, affording him a small porthole looking out on the clouds and treetops passing by below them. There was also a small dispenser built into the wall, similar to her own, that would pour water into paper cups supplied by a chute just beside it. He seemed satisfied with this at least, sitting down on his bench with a satisfied smile as he sipped at his cup of water.

The second hour brought another cleric, different than the first, down their hallway. This one tossed a backpack inside, the bag colliding with the stranger’s leg as the young man shut the door once again. “Your belongings have been inspected,” he said, in as clinical a voice as he could manage. He must be an acolyte, she thought. His voice lacked the detached condescension of his superiors. “Any containers, instruments, or utensils have been confiscated. Archcleric Kade is allowing you to keep your books and notepads.”

“How kind of him,” the man said, opening the bag to examine its contents for himself. “Give him my regards.”

“The archcleric also asks that you reconsider the invitation extended to you. You seem a devout man, yourself.” The student gestured towards one of the books the man had pulled out of his bag. “With time, he hopes you will see the righteousness of our mission.”

The stranger returned to his silence. After several minutes, the acolyte simply gave up and left, surely returning to report to his superiors about their prisoner’s uncooperative behavior. It was a good thing he was human, she thought to herself, teeth grinding slow against one another. Anyone they thought less of wouldn’t be afforded the option of expressing such surliness to his captors.

Satisfied that they were the only two in the brig, she sat up crawled closer to the front of her cell. The man had another, much thinner, book with a black cover open. His face had softened into a smile, eyes fixed on something she couldn’t see.

“With tactics like that,” she said, “it’s a wonder how they attract recruits at all.”

He looked up, turning toward her for the first time since his arrival. She wondered what she looked like to him, what thoughts were forming in his head in that first instant. “I wouldn’t be so sure,” he said, chest shuddering from a quick laugh. He shut the book in his lap and set it gently down into the backpack. “This ship seems to be well staffed. Obviously, the method has some kind of success rate.”

She grinned, the first feeling of anything more than simple toleration she’d had in weeks. “Just not on you or I, then.”

“Not particularly, it would seem. I doubt you would be down here if you had accepted their rather poorly named invitation.” He curled his fingers into hooks at that last word. “At least I get a bench, though. You don’t seem to have the deluxe cell like I have.”

“You don’t seem very concerned about being imprisoned.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been in a prison cell before. I’ve even been yelled at and been delivered ultimatums by zealots while in said cells.” Arms extended, he gestured out at the space around him. “At least the airship is an invigorating change.”

What a curious man, she thought to herself. It wasn’t unusual for people from other worlds to find themselves in Felarya, either by accident or design. Wherever he had come from, perhaps humans hadn’t developed technology like that of the Othemites.

The man shook his head, extending one hand towards her for a moment before laughing, and laying it back in his lap. “Here I am, carrying on a conversation with you when I don’t even know you’re name. Mine is Ibrahim. Ibrahim Abd-el Rashid.”

“And mine is Desily.” Quiet fell for a moment in the slice of hallway between their cells. She laughed, watching him stare at her, turned as though waiting for her to continue. “Just Desily. Where I come from, we don’t bother with more than one name. There are plenty enough names to use without two of us sharing the same.”

He nodded, chuckling a little as he turned his head away, his eyes staring instead across the width of his cell from his seat on the bench. “Desily, then. Is where you come from here, then? Or do you come from another world, like myself?”

“No. I was born here, in Felarya. Just in another part of it, far away from where we are now.”

“You must miss your home, then,” Ibrahim said. His voice fell quieter, something straining ever so slightly under his words. There was something unspoken hidden there, Desily told herself. Though it was best to let it emerge on its own, with only the gentlest nudge here and there. “As I imagine you’ve been away from it for some time.”

She closed her eyes, picturing the soft purple light falling through gaps in the trees of her native forests. The flutter of wings audible in every direction, and the hushed but constant crash of water spilling over the void that separated her homeland from the woods beyond it. “I do,” she said, forcing her voice to remain steady, even as the recollection of what she’d been separated from squeezed tight at her heart.

“Believe me when I tell you, I can sympathize completely.” He sighed, laying his head back against the wall. She watched him turn, facing towards the porthole in the far wall. “God-willing, we’ll both manage to find a way back to wherever it is we each call home.”

“I wouldn’t count on it much,” she said, and walked back to her mat. The Othemites would likely return soon enough, and she wanted to make it seem as though they hadn’t been speaking. Being grilled as to what they’d said to one another was not something she wanted added to the list of daily miseries she was subjected to by her keepers. Ibrahim’s optimism, nonetheless, left a bright spot in her mind’s eye, at least. “Still, I appreciate the sentiment.”

“And I appreciate having someone to talk to who isn’t demanding I do this or say that.”

She chuckled as she lay down on her side, her back towards him. “I’m not sure what good I’ll be to talk to. Having someone to break up the silence is nice, though.”

“Then I’ll do my best to make our time more interesting then.”

Desily closed her eyes. His idea of interesting, at least, seemed far more pleasant. It wasn’t as good as home, she told herself, but it would have to do for now.

 

~

 

She awoke again to the sound of a cell door opening. A grip tightened around her heart; she lay on her side, still facing the back wall, afraid to turn over. She was hungry, but the horrid taste of her gruel revolted her. Her conversation, however brief it was, with Ibrahim reminded her that there was a world outside her cell and beyond the Othemite airship. The thought of being pulled back to the reality of her imprisonment was too much; the thought of returning home again too pleasant to have pulled away again.

It was only the sound of the other prisoner’s name that gave her some relief. She turned onto her back, keeping her eyes mostly closed as she turned her head slightly towards the other cell. Hopefully, her observation would go unnoticed.

“You’ve brought me dinner,” Ibrahim said. The smile on his face was a show, pleasant but as hollow as a hatched egg. “How very hospitable of you.”

The cleric - an older man, his robes decorated with a sash embroidered in gold and silver thread, sat on a stool that he’d brought in with him. Ibrahim held the tray the cleric brought in his lap, a glass of water and a plate whose contents she couldn’t quite see save for a roll of bread, resting on top of it. “We are at odds, Mr. Abd-el Rashid, but you are still our guest. Please, eat. You’ve been on your own in the jungle for some time; you’ve been here a few days, but I must imagine you are still hungry.”

Ibrahim looked down at his meal, then back at the cleric. “Mr. Kade, I was told by the young man that brought me down here that the young lady in the cell across from me would be brought her food at the same time as mine was brought to me.” She breathed in sharply. Don’t talk to them about me, she seethed in silence. Don’t give them any more reason to hurt me! “My meal is here, but hers is not. I would like to think that you are a man of your word. You are a religious man, after all, are you not?”

The archcleric glanced towards her cell; his body unmoving on top of his stool, only his eyes shifting to stare down at her before refocusing on Ibrahim. “She needs to be supervised while she is eating. The girl has given us some trouble in the past.”

“It would be unkind of me to eat in front of someone who is hungry.” Ibrahim set the tray beside him on the bench and laid his hands on top of one another in his lap. “I will wait for her dinner to arrive.”

“You shouldn’t concern yourself with her.”

Ibrahim laughed. Shut up, you damn idiot, she thought. “I have an obligation to be concerned. We share a common bond. We’re both your prisoners, are we not?”

Archcleric Kade’s brow furrowed, thin lips pressing tight together, the corners of his mouth sinking lower on his face. “I do not wish to keep you locked up in here. We are both men of faith, as you observed…”

“That wasn’t what I said.”

“We have an obligation, Ibrahim. There are men and women that venture into that jungle, that hell passing by beneath us. They venture out there, simply to make their livelihoods. To support families, husbands and wives, children and parents, people who depend on them. And they never return, lost to the stomach of some ravenous monster lurking in the shadows.”

Ibrahim turned away; for a second, Desily was sure she saw his eyes began to water. “I can certainly understand that, Archcleric. Where I came from, the circumstances the people around me found themselves in, I can entirely empathize with risking one’s life for their loved ones, against monsters with an appetite for destruction.”

Kade’s frown loosened. He lifted his head, eyes closed lightly, smiling at the man across from him. “Then you see the merit of our work. We wish to make Felarya safer for humanity. To banish back the darkness threatening to consume this world.”

Ibrahim, though, raised a hand between them, wagging a finger at the Othemite. Kade blinked, sitting back. His eyes narrowed at the finger shaking back and forth before him. “By my experience, however, I think that you do not give the beings that inhabit this world’s jungles and forests due credit. They have kept their word to me; they have expressed compassion and mercy, something I haven’t much seen from my fellow man in the recent past.”

“Make no mistake, the thought of being eaten by any of them scares the hell out of me. It should terrify anyone. But that is what they are. That is their, and our, place in things in this world. I don’t like it. Neither of us do. But the decision of whether to do so, and why to do so, is theirs. Just as it is ours to take someone’s life, or preserve it. To grant mercy, or deliver justice.”

He picked up his tray and thrust it back at Kade, keeping only the roll of bread with himself. “I’m not sure what kind of a god you and the members of your order worship, Archcleric. The one I was taught about, however, is one that extends mercy more often than he doles out punishment. I like to think he expects the same from us.”

The glass and plate rattled against the tray, the archcleric struggling to keep all of it from tipping over. “I see no mercy in protecting monsters.”

Ibrahim chuckled as Kade rose to his feet, the archcleric walking quickly to the cell door. “It’s funny,” he said, his chest still shaking with amusement. “I feel the same way.”

Snarling, Kade moved quickly through the door, slamming it shut behind him before hurrying back down the hallway. It was a welcome twist on things, Desily thought. She had become so used to seeing the Othemite clerics cool and collected, utterly in control of everything within their flying tin can. Watching as one of their own - a fellow human, even! - got under their skin was delightful to see play out.

Something soft bumped against her collarbone, rolling to a stop on the floor beside her. She opened her eyes, watching half of a roll of bread rest against the steel plates. Like a flash, she crawled towards it, cradling it in her hands before looking to where it had come from.

“I’ll have you know,” he said, one side of his mouth curled upwards, “I gave up a really nice looking steak to share that with you.”

She pondered the piece of food in her hands; it was still warm. Kade must have gotten it fresh from the airship’s kitchen. Only the best would do for a potential recruit, she supposed. “You didn’t have to do that. I’m sure you’re starving.”

He shrugged, biting off a mouthful of his half. “I’ve been hungrier.”

She took a deep breath and bit into the roll. It was soft, its heat pouring downward into her belly as she swallowed the morsel. Sweetness rolled over her tongue; she wanted to leap for joy, for the simple pleasure of flavor and all of its pleasures. She wanted to both devour it at once, and savor every last bite for as long as she could.

Instead, she turned her attention to her neighbor, hoping that focusing on him would keep her from eating the roll too quickly. “That cleric,” she said while biting off more bread, “said you were a religious man, like he was. Were you some kind of cleric, wherever you came from?”

Ibrahim stared at her for a moment, face entirely blank. He then erupted into laughter. His body nearly folded in half; he reached out with one hand, smacking it against the wall behind him as his laughter sputtered into a fit of coughing. “That’s something!” He gasped, coughing out crumbs of his bread. Setting the rest of his roll down, he hurried across the cell and poured a cup of water from the dispenser. “Me, a cleric!” He leaned against the wall, draining the cup quickly before letting his hand drop back down to his side. “I’m sorry; my little spiel at Kade must have given you the wrong impression.”

Shaking his head, Ibrahim returned to the bench he’d been sitting on. “No, I’m not a cleric, or a preacher, or anything like that. I’m a bookkeeper.”

Desily waited for the word to connect to something, but her head came up with nothing. “You… work in a library?”

“You really are funny, aren’t you?” He laughed again, his humor much more contained this time. “No, I’m sorry. I suppose the kind of work I do is meaningless to most of the people in Felarya. I’m an accountant. I worked in an office… a, ah, a building that people in my world conduct business in. It was my job to keep track of money that was paid to us, and money that we paid to others.”

That much she could understand. Money might be little more than meaningless trinkets of paper and precious metals to her, but she knew enough that people who lived elsewhere in Felarya traded it for food, and clothing, and weapons and provisions. None of which ended up being very useful in the jungle, but she supposed it gave the ones purchasing a bit of comfort. “Then why,” she went on, “does he keep calling you a religious man.”

“Because he has a mistaken impression of me.” He took another bite, carefully, of his roll. “You see, Desily, when I was a young boy, a cleric in my world who was one of my school teachers taught me something. I must have said something about another cleric I’d seen on television…” he paused. “You don’t know what a television is, do you?”

Not particularly, she thought to herself, but she supposed it didn’t matter. “Don’t worry about it. Go on.”

“Right. I must have said something to the effect that, when I grew older, I wanted to become a deeply religious man. One who took what he believed very seriously. He took me aside after class was over, knelt down in front of me, and said, ‘Ibrahim, I want to teach you a very important lesson. One that is as valuable as learning to recite clearly, as valuable as knowing the stories of the prophets and all of their deeds and everything else I am teaching you in this class.’”

“He said, ‘There is a difference between a religious man, and a man of faith. A very important difference!’” His voice didn’t sound like his own; he was obviously trying to imitate his teacher, she realized as he smacked a fist against his lap to emphasize what the man had said to him. “What he told me, was, ‘The religious man recites the words of God, recites the words of the prophets, recites this law and that law. He acts on them, but he does not think about them. Does not consider them and what they are trying to teach. It is as though he is rewriting those words in his head, because he acts on them in the way that he wishes to hear them. Not for what they are trying to say. And that, my dear Ibrahim, that is a sin, for you are putting yourself on the same footing, or a higher footing, than that which created the universe!’”

He turned towards her, beaded tears clinging just under his eyes. “Instead, he told me, be a man of faith. Be one who listens, and considers, before speaking and acting. The Prophet told us that himself, Ibrahim. The learned man is the heir of the prophets. So be someone that learns from every moment in their life. That’s what he told me.”

Taking a deep breath, he gestured to the length of hallway that Kade had stormed down on his way out. “That man, I think, is a religious man. I don’t know what whatever scripture he might have says, or what all of his beliefs are. But the difference is something you can see in someone’s eyes, in the way they speak, the way they look at others. The kind of man that Archcleric Kade is not the man I wish to be. It’s not the kind of man I was taught to be.”

She smiled, turning the last piece of her bread over and over in her hand. “I’m not sure what kind of clerics your people have, or what they’re supposed to do,” she said, pushing the piece of roll into her mouth. It was still warm, still as sweet, as the first bite of it; it slid down her throat with the warmth of a campfire on a winter’s night. “For what it’s worth, though, maybe you would have been a good one.”

“Maybe I would have,” he said, and finished his own food. “In another lifetime, then, God-willing. Who knows?”

 

~

 

The day went onward; through the porthole in Ibrahim’s cell, they watched the sun sink lower and fall below the jungle’s treetops. Off in the far distance, he could see the silhouette of one large tree standing above the others around it. Ibrahim stood, getting as close to the window as his cell would allow. “That tree,” he said, his voice hushed, “That tree must be… must be as tall as a mountain to stand that high over the others.”

Desily smiled as she lay on her side. It was the first she’d seen him acknowledge the world outside the airship. “It is,” she said, pressing her cheek against one propped-up arm. The man turned back towards her; his eyes were still open wide in awe; she could almost see a sparkle play across his brown irises. “There are entire species that live their entire lives in that tree, moving from one set of branches to another, preying on other species that live in or on the tree, finding their mates, having children… they could go from their birth to their death and never see the ground, never move beyond that one tree.”

He turned back to the window. “I would want to see it, someday.”

That was a laugh, she thought, and rolled onto her back. Her scars met the hard surface under her, sending a jolt of pain up and down her spine. Almost forgot about those; she breathed deep and shook her head. “You’d need to get off of this ship first. I don’t see the Othemites letting you take a little day trip out there, anytime soon.”

His shoulders drooped; he seemed like a child, suddenly told that they wouldn’t be traveling out to the sea as they had expected. A sense of guilt sank deep into her, weighing her down. If she hadn’t told him about the tree, described it so vividly, they could have kept imagining that this wasn’t some kind of captivity they were trapped in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“No, it’s alright.” He stepped back from the window and sank back onto his bench. “It doesn’t make it any less incredible to imagine, even if we’ve got a wall and… what, dozens of kilometers? Getting any sense of scale or distance around here is impossible. I felt like I was going in circles when I was walking my own way through the woods.” He paused, his head turned towards her. “You do know what kilometers are, do you?”

“No, but you’ve more or less explained it yourself.” She wanted to turn, wanted to sit up. But the thought of getting off her back again, of her skin pulling at the scar tissue, was agonizing. She wanted to, and didn’t want to, in equal measures.

She settled, instead, for turning her head towards Ibrahim. His attention had shifted to the bag sitting on the floor beside his bench. The top was open, folded down partly on itself, and several books now sat in a pile on the bench. One - the long, thin book he’d looked at earlier, sat open in his hands. His eyes focused on its contents, seeming to dwell for some time on one thing, before moving to another place on the page. He only rarely turned pages; a band of white light reflected across the surface of each one as he lifted it up and over, covering the previous leaf in the book.

“Reading to pass the time, then?”

His head lifted and snapped towards her. “What?” He raised the book up, resting his thumb between two pages to mark his place. A gold border framed the front cover, while curling, looping strokes intertwined with one another were centered in the shape of what seemed like a bird. Its feathers, or tail - she wasn’t completely sure - fanned out behind it, formed from what her mind began to tell her were letters.

She focused, closing her eyes, and listened. The ship’s noise screamed over everything else, but even thousands of feet above the ground, she could still hear the world whispering to her. Letting Felarya translate speech was second-nature; that exchange between conscious mind and the magical aura of the world was as natural and thoughtless as breathing. Letting it interpret the written word, however, required far more concentration.

The words spelled themselves out in her own language, in her own voice; the realization of their meaning shaking through her like the chill of a waterfall’s spray. Her hand found the floor and pushed her upright, fighting against the protests of her back as skin and scar tissue stretched over the back of her ribs.

“Are you alright?” he asked, laying the book back in his lap as he leaned in her direction.

“I am, yes.” She took a deep breath, letting her weight settle onto her hips and bottom, her knees drawn up to her chest. “That book is about your family, isn’t it?”

His eyes darted between her and the cover of the book. “You can read that?”

She shook her head. “Yes and no. I guess you haven’t been in this world very long, have you?”

“A week or so. Or maybe less than that. I’ve been here long enough that I knew better than to stop moving for very long in the jungle.” He set the black-covered book aside. “The trees are so thick that it’s hard to keep track of days and nights, at times. I may be a few days off. I have no idea.”

She willed her feet to slide under her, then pushed down on them to stand. The steel floor felt like ice beneath her feet; she’d only felt real ice and snow a handful of times, and those were enough to never want to repeat the experience willingly. Her legs bowed and wobbled as they unfolded, weakened from lack of use. Where did she have to walk except for the handful of feet that made up her cell? “You and I are speaking different languages right now. You are speaking in the language you are probably most comfortable using, and myself in my own language.”

“However, we hear one another in our own language. I hear you in mine, and you hear me in yours. It’s a natural part of this world, as natural as the rain falling, the sun rising and setting, and so on.” She smiled, and leaned against the bars at the front of her cell, her legs grateful to have part of her weight taken off of them. “If you concentrate, you can even understand written texts in other languages as though they were your own. It’s harder, though. Some people can’t do it at all - some of us just have more of an affinity for magic, and have an easier time with it.”

He nodded, hands resting on his knees. “Magic is still something I’m getting used to. I was told by… by others I’ve encountered that it exists here. I’ve never seen it, though. And it’s not something we have in the world I’m from.” His body shook for a moment as he laughed. “On our world, if you told someone you could magically translate what they were saying in your head, without ever knowing their language, they’d think you were crazy. Out of your mind.” He pointed at the side of his head, moving one extended finger in a circle. “You’d get a one-way ticket to the kind of hospital they take crazy people to.”

“That sounds a bit excessive.”

“Maybe.” He turned his head; she could see the grin on his face, curls of black hair resting around his ears. “Though if they ended up in a world like this one, like I have, they’d probably feel crazy. To be honest, I can’t tell if I’m crazy or not anymore.”

Smiling, she started arranging more questions in her mind. His world sounded so different from hers. How could people get by without magic? The idea of not being able to generate fire in the rain, of not being able to understand one another, of every task made easier by some form of magic seemed absolutely unfathomable. How did people get across huge distances? How did they protect their homes?

Her questions, though, were interrupted by the sharp pain of her knees slamming into the cell bars. A cry caught in her throat, coming out as a choked gasp. Her hands clenched the bars tightly to keep herself from toppling over onto her back.

“Desily?” Ibrahim was already on his feet, throwing himself at the bars of his own cell. He thrust one arm out between the steel bars, straining it to try and reach her hand. It was a useless gesture, she thought; they were too far apart for him to grab hold of her if she did fall. “Desily, what happened?”

She could stand back up. She wanted to stand back up. The risk of falling over, of slamming her back into the steel floor, was too great and too painful to take. She let her legs slowly fold and slid her hands down the bars until she sat back on the floor again. “I’m alright,” she said, and breathed in deep. “My legs are too weak. I haven’t been able to walk for a long time.”

“Then sit. Stand as long as you can, then set yourself down before you can fall down.” Ibrahim took a step back from the bars and set his hands down into his pockets. “I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

She laughed, pushing locks of hair out from where they’d fallen in front of her eyes. “You care a lot for someone you met only a day or so ago.”

He shrugged and sat back down, leaning back until he rested against the wall. “I have a very short supply of friends at the moment. I figure, why not make them where I can?”

She eased herself down, letting the cool of the floor move up the length of her back like twilight as it swept across the day, turning it to night. “I guess it’s the same in my case. Good to have you on board with me then,” she said, smiling up at Ibrahim, “my friend.”

 

~

 

She lost track of time in the cold of the floor at her back. Ibrahim had fallen quiet, himself, as well - lost in the black-covered book. Maybe it was a journal from the world he had left behind when he ended up in Felarya. There was another name in the script embedded along with his own. A spouse, she was sure - she remembered seeing books like it, filled with images of the people traveling in the caravans she and her sisters raided. More often than not, the pictures were of nothing in particular. Just scenes of the people who owned the album in this place or another, doing this thing or another. It seemed peculiar to her - could these people not remember any of these times, these places, without a picture to help them?

It seemed like a terribly sad way to go about life. More often than not, though, the album was simply cast aside, left to be trampled underfoot and lost under the mud and soil of the jungle. It wasn’t worth remembering, she usually decided - just a bit of refuse left behind in the ruins of the ravaged caravan.

This album, with its gold script and border and its power to pull at her companion’s thoughts in the many empty moments between their conversations, managed to capture her own attention. What sort of images did he have on its pages? What people, what places, did he want help with remembering?

Her thoughts were interrupted by the rattle of her cell door opening and closing. Opening her eyes, she saw the Othemite nurse standing over her, kit in hand.

This time, however, she was not alone. One of the clerics - the young man who’d originally brought Ibrahim to his cell, stood at her side. His nose was turned up, eyes staring down the front of himself to where she lay on the floor. “Get up,” he said, pushing the front of his boot into her side. “Sit up. It’s time for your examination and treatment.”

She was used to the prodding and pain of the exams administered every other day. Treatment, however, was something entirely new. New, she thought, biting at her lip, and unpleasant.

“Get up,” the cleric repeated, prodding her harder. The front of his shoe pushed in just below her ribs. “Get up, or I will make you get up.”

She turned onto her side, back facing the two joining her. She pulled one arm under herself, the other wrapped over her chest, pushing with both to right herself.

This, however, was not fast enough for the cleric. His hand grabbed at the back of her hair, pulling it taut to her scalp as he raised her to his feet. She gasped out a cry, feet padding around on the floor until she could balance. “Learn to listen,” the cleric said and released her, leaving her to flail her arms until she could put herself on a stable footing. “Please proceed, nurse.”

The nurse reached down for her dress’ hem, pulling it upwards. “Raise your arms, please.”

She looked back, watching the cleric out of the corner of her eyes. “Not with him around. Ask him to leave.”

“This procedure needs to be supervised,” the cleric said. His mouth hardly appeared to move, his teeth clenched together even as he spoke. “Proceed, nurse.”

The woman asked her again to lift her arms. She could care less about being naked in front of others; the clothing given to her when she was brought on board was the first she’d owned - she’d never had use of anything of its nature before, beyond a few trinkets of jewelry worn occasionally for her amusement. She’d willingly - if reluctantly - stripped down for the nurse every time she’d come to examine her. It was his presence, this particular cleric, that made the idea of being naked in front of him uncomfortable.

“Not until he leaves,” she repeated. She wasn’t going to tolerate this. Ibrahim had stood firm against the archcleric’s badgering. She would do the same. “Send him out, first.”

The cleric grunted, pushing the nurse aside; Desily saw him lurch towards her, and bent her legs to spring out of the way. Her limbs, however, with their weakened muscles couldn’t move as fast she wanted them to.

His hand grabbed the back of her gown and pushed her forward, feet tripping over themselves until she slammed into the wall. Her breath rushed out of her lungs, her body buckling, struggling to not fall immediately to the floor. Her mind could fix itself on nothing but the cold until she felt the cleric pull up on her clothing.

With a scream, she whipped around towards him. Her gown tore in a spiral, coming off in the man’s hand as a long, spiraling strip. Her fist, small as it was, swung about and drove itself into the side of his jaw.

The cleric dropped to the floor, rolling onto all fours. The nurse had backed herself into the front of the cell, calling into the radio she’d pulled from her belt. Desily wasted no time; she sprung forward on still-trembling legs, dropping onto the cleric’s back. Her hands reached for his neck, wrapping thin fingers around it and squeezing with every ounce of strength she could summon.

“What’s going on? What the hell are you doing to her?”

She looked up; Ibrahim had woken up and thrown himself at the front of the cell, banging a fist rapidly against the bars. The sound of them rattling under his blows echoed up and down the hall. “Hey! Nurse!” He reached out with his other arm, gesturing for the frightened woman to look at him. “Get them apart! Get him away from her!”

The cleric pushed upward, throwing her off his back. She hit the floor, the pain of impact blasting through every nerve in her body. “Stay out of this!” The cleric had turned to Ibrahim, swinging his arm to direct him back to his bench. “Go back to sleep and stay out of this!”

“Not until you get out of that cell!”

Ibrahim pushed away from the bars and ducked down, reaching for something in his backpack. “Keep,” he snarled, hurling a book through the bars, “your hands off of her!”

The book bounced off the cleric’s face, stunning him for a second. He stormed toward the door, leaving her and the nurse behind in her cell as he charged into Ibrahim’s. She flipped over in time to see the cleric slam the other cell’s door shut, balling his hands into fists. “Stop! Don’t hit him!”

The cleric ignored her, punching a fist into one open hand. “When I tell you to go back to bed,” he said, advancing a step towards Ibrahim, “that isn’t a recommendation. It’s an order.”

Ibrahim shrugged. How could he be so calm? “I’ve never been good at following orders, to be honest.”

That set the cleric off. In one leap, in the flash of one second in Desily’s mind, he launched forward and plowed his fist up into the other prisoner’s chest. The blow forced the breath from Ibrahim’s lungs and flung him back into the wall; his head hit the steel plates, making them ring like a large, hollow bell, before his body crumbled to the ground.

“Stay out of our business.” The cleric cracked his knuckles and turned to return to her cell. “You have no idea what she is, no idea the danger she poses.”

She swallowed, body limp as the nurse sat her back up and removed the gown covering her body. The bang of her own cell door closing behind the cleric echoed through her head, the man leaning against the bars as he stared at her. “Turn her around,” he said, flapping a hand to one side. “I’d like to see how everything is succeeding so far.”

She offered no resistance, and leaned forward, baring her back to him as she leaned her weight onto her hands resting on the floor. She tuned out the nurse's’ touch, tuned out the cleric’s comments, tuned out the burning sensation radiating through her body as needle after needle sank down through the scar tissue, driving down through the layers of her flesh.

Ibrahim, she thought, repeating his name to herself. Think of him. Think of him and not what they’re doing to you, the poisons spreading through your muscles and your blood and along your nerves. Ibrahim, please get up. Please, get back up.

 

~

 

“Desily. Desily!”

The rasping voice seemed far away from her. At first, she couldn’t even tell that it was real. Maybe she was asleep. Maybe her mind had simply closed in on itself and fallen asleep, unable and unwilling to tolerate the stabbing pain of her ‘examination and treatment’, as the cleric described it. It was only after she heard the more familiar bang of a hand against steel bars that she recognized where she was, and who the other voice was.

She was on her back, the cold floor pressing against her back and bottom. Her gown laid on top of her like a blanket. Turning her head and opening her eyes, blurred shapes and colors came back into focus in the darkened hallway, merging back into the sight of Ibrahim kneeling in front of his cell’s bars. He banged on them again, his open palm rattling the front of his cage. “Desily! Can you hear me?”

Finding words again took several, long moments. Her head seemed unwilling to offer any; her voice too tired to translate them into audible speech. “I can,” she said, her own voice hoarse. “I can hear you.”

She blinked, waiting for her eyesight to clear. Through the dark, she could start to see his face more clearly. One side of his jaw was covered in splotches of purple and green; red stained the skin above his upper lip, showing where he’d try to wipe away a trickle of blood from his nose. “Are you…”

“Don’t worry about me. I’ve taken worse.” He sat back, folding his hands over themselves in his lap. “Can you sit up?”

She didn’t want to do anything. A dull, burning feeling lingered up and down the length of her body. “I don’t want to.”

“That’s fine. Don’t worry about moving.” He closed his eyes, eyes turned down at his feet. “Do you want to put your gown back on? I’ll look away while you dress.”

She shook her head. “I don’t care. I’d have to move to get dressed.”

“True. That’s fine as well, then.”

Silence hung between them, a long pause that seemed filled with so many questions. She didn’t want to answer anything; she just wanted to sleep, to tune everything out and hope that the ache would be gone by the time the sun came back up.

Ibrahim breathed deep, only to cough and cover his mouth and nose. When he looked up again, a fresh few spots of blood were dribbling over his lips. “You aren’t human,” he said, voice hushed, but calm. The words didn’t seem bitter in his mouth; he didn’t seem to recoil from them. They simply fell forth, a simple statement of fact. “That’s why they’re afraid of you, isn’t it. You’re one of the species that live out in the jungle.”

She patted a hand around, pressing down against the floor. Gritting her teeth, she pulled herself forward, closer to her mat. “What gave it away?” She asked, spitting the words out with a trembling, empty laugh.

“Your ears, for one. Though that could just be genetics. No, actually, it was the tint of your skin when they gave you one of your injections. For a moment,” he said, stopping to take a breath. “For a moment, it turned a pale blue. That, I’m pretty sure, isn’t a human trait. Even in this world.”

“Such good intuition.” Her fingers tried to dig down into the steel, wanted to dig little furrows into the plate as she pulled herself forward. The mat was only inches away now. It might as well be on the other side of the Tolmeshal, she thought. “The schools on your world must be quite good. I guess that’s how you managed not to get yourself killed, wandering around in the jungle.”

She finally reached the mat, rolling herself onto it. Her back screamed in pain as she landed on it; her spine arched, fingers curling until her nails dug into her palm, until she slowly settled back down onto the thin pad. “I’m a fairy. The Othemites ambushed a group of us while we were hunting for prey. Used… I have no idea what. Some kind of technology or whatever that they have, that interfered with our magic. I saw the machines for a split second before one of their nets closed in around me. The others tried to get me, tried to pick me up, but had to flee - the clerics opened fire, and without magic, we couldn’t…”

“They brought you back here, then,” Ibrahim continued for her. “Those scars on your back. Those were your wings. They cut them off of you.”

She nodded. “They did it right there. Four of them held me down, one to each arm and leg. Held me with my belly to the ground, my face in the dirt.” Her head tilted towards him, her eyes looking half at him, and half at nothing at all. “It would be like having one of your limbs cut off, Ibrahim. I thought my lungs would burst, I screamed so loud as it cut through me. It took a day or two just for the bleeding to stop complete. Their nurses had to come in every few hours, changing the bandages. Half a dozen armed clerics would stand at guard, weapons ready. Not that I could do anything, but they obviously didn’t want to take any chances.”

Silence again. “I apologize. I tried to do what I could. You looked frightened, and…” The man’s face tightened, his eyes closing. She followed his arms downward and saw them shaking as he pressed his hands into his legs. “I know you’re probably older than her; I’ve heard that fairies don’t show their age after a certain point. But all I could think of was my daughter. I couldn’t stop the men who dragged her and her mother away from me. And I couldn’t sit idle as men like them tried to hurt you.”

Her throat spasmed, mangled, muted laughter passing through her lips. “You don’t even know me, Ibrahim! You met me yesterday. You didn’t even realize I wasn’t human until just now.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His own voice, by contrast was steady, anchored deep into some bedrock within him. “You’re a person, regardless of what species you are.”

“I’m a predator, Ibrahim!” Adrenaline rushed through her, wakening muscles that still burned in pain, mixing with the poisons still coursing through her. She lurched onto her feet, swaying, each footfall sounding to her like thunder rolling across the sky. She leaned forward as she reached the front of her cell, hands wrapping around the bars like claws as she pressed her face against them. “With my wings, I could grow and pop this ship apart like it were made of twigs and leaves! I ambush your kind!” She opened her mouth, baring her teeth, ignoring the sharp pains of skin cracking at the corners of her mouth, peeling over the surface of her lips. Her tongue slipped out, moistening their dry surfaces. “If I found you alone in the jungle like you were before you were taken here, I would have eaten you without a second thought!”

He sat, unmoved. “If God wills it, then.”

“Your god is heartless.”

“My God,” he said, “doesn’t see all of this through my limited eyes. I would be afraid. I would try to run. But if it was my place, and my time, then that would be the end of it.”

“And this doesn’t bother you.” She stepped back from the bars, hands still wrapped around them. Her knees wobbled under her; her feet shifted, slid along the floor to plant herself firmly in place. “That you would be left to be devoured by some monster, abandoned, dead.” Teeth ground against one another. “Your god would let you die without ever seeing your family again?”

Silence. She smiled. That finally struck a nerve. She smiled, only to have her smile falter as Ibrahim looked away from her. “What exactly,” he finally said, voice quiet and shaking, “do you believe in, Desily? What kind of a god or gods or what have you do you worship?”

“This isn’t about me.”

“It’s about both of us,” snapped Ibrahim, his words sharp, voice clipping through them in rapid succession. “You can’t have much of an argument with just yourself.”

“Different fairies believe different things. The ones I know believe in a trinity of goddesses, goddesses of predation. One dedicated to the hunt, one to the feast, and one to the satisfaction of a full stomach.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “That’s rather particular.”

“We have very particular spiritual needs. What is your point?”

“So if you were somehow captured by a greater predator…”

Desily rolled her eyes. “There are no greater predators in Felarya than fairies, Ibrahim.”

He groaned, waving a hand over his shoulder. “This is a hypothetical situation. Anyway. If you were caught by a greater predator than yourself, who is to say your goddesses wouldn’t be satisfied? After all, someone would have hunted you well - especially well, for a predator to stalk a predator. You’d be a fair feast for someone, one well earned. And you’d likely sate the belly of whomever ate you.”

It was Desily turn to fall silent. Her head rested against the cold bars of her cell. “So your arguement is that we both worship heartless beings?”

“Not heartless. Just that they have goals that don’t always intertwine with what we want. Hence, why I say ‘God-willing’ when I refer to things that I want, or things that might happen, or that I want to happen. If God wills for me to be safe, then it will be so. If God wills for me to be food to feed some other creature’s body, then so be it.”

“That still seems rather depressing.”

“I didn’t say that I wanted to be food, at least.”

“Congratulations, then.” She feigned clapping her hands together. “You’re not mad.”

He chuckled, nodding, picking himself up off the floor of his cell. “Get some sleep, Desily. Let your body rest and heal, inasmuch as it can. Unfortunately for you, I did not take my aunt’s advice and go to medical school, but I can at least say with some confidence that resting will let the pain start to fade from your back.”

She nodded, and closed her eyes, laying still to allow the pain in her back to subside. Her eyes began to close, Ibrahim and the cell and the hallway between them melting back into the darkness as her mind slipped further and further back into her head. For a moment, she was back in the forest, among the darkened spaces between trees, lit by bioluminescent lights like stars against the trunks and foliage.

“Ibrahim,” she said, voice soft with sleep.

She turned her head, looking for him. He was sitting on the edge of his bench, about to lay himself down. “Yes, Desily?”

“That tree you saw through the window. I’d like to take you to it.”

He sat up, looking at her through the bars of their cells. “You would?”

“I would.” She smiled, feeling something alive inside of her for the first time in what felt like months. “So let’s get off this damn airship.”

**Author's Note:**

>  _Augustine_ is written and performed by Vienna Teng, from her album "Inland Territory". Find more about Vienna Teng and her music at www.viennateng.com.


End file.
